As She Fades to Black
by Winaru
Summary: After Homura and Shizuku erases Rukia's existence from everyone's memories, a huge chasm is left in the universe. To stop the world from collapsing, another being, Yanagi, is created to fill in the void for Rukia. But once Ichigo arrives to save the day, Rukia returns, and Yanagi must grasp that she was never meant to exist, and bid farewell to the people she loves the most...
1. Chapter 1

Just to note, the events in this story occur in an alternate universe, somewhere towards the end of the third Bleach movie _Fade to Black_.

Something I always wanted to write, and finally figured out how to, though as a one-shot, it is still slightly too long.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Bleach, but this story is my own.

* * *

**As She Fades to Black**

Part 1.

A Stranger Comes to Visit

* * *

1.

An afternoon sun basked the garden in a warm glow, and the snow on the flowerbeds was starting to melt.

Seeing droplets of water fall from the icicles lining the roof, the woman believed for a moment that it was raining. She glanced up and, taking in the cloudless sky, turned back to face the boy standing beside her.

He had been talking to her about her past.

Stealthily, he had entered her house, cut across the shadowy hallway and found her in a room on the far west side of the dwelling.

As soon as she felt that unfamiliar presence racing closer towards her, her hand instinctively reached for her Zanpaktou. She was not accustomed to slaying enemies inside her own house, but her fingers eagerly grasped the handle and steadily drew it out from its scabbard. The four-word incantation and name of her Zanpakto was already burning on the tip of her tongue, ready to burst from her mouth when he arrived.

When the door finally flew open, the woman recognized the intruder immediately. Orange spiky hair, serious eyes shining with resolve, full black Shinigami robes, and wielding an over-sized kitchen knife. The hollow mask was nowhere to be seen, but she'd been told that it only appeared during the heat of battle, lending the wearer a boost of immense and inhuman power that would carry him until the end of the fight.

He was panting, sweating as if he'd just ran a marathon. She watched him closely. There was something in his eyes, a certain sadness, as though he had terrible news to deliver. She immediately thought of her husband who had clashed with the boy once before. At the time no victor had been determined; Renji had returned home more confused than upset, unwilling to talk he headed straight for the old 6th division barracks where he pulled Rikichi out of training, and asked a team of his best fighters to join his search for the ryoka.

After taking most of the afternoon to cool his head, running from the Red Hollow Gate to the White Way Gate, pouncing from wall to wall to get his blood flowing and to sharpen his mind and perception; once he was able to attach his own insight and understanding to the situation, Renji returned to her in the evening, sat down beside her and poured a saucer of warm sake for the two of them. They downed the contents of six porcelain bottles, joked, and blabbed for hours revisiting old memories.

Night fell, only then did Renji begin talking about what was bothering him.

Seeing the ryoka boy for the first time, she couldn't believe that this kid had survived a direct attack from Captain Komamura, let alone achieved bankai himself. His reitsu was overwhelming, she had to admit, greater than her own undoubtedly, potentially even a match to that of her captain. But where had he come from? How is it possible that she had not come across someone of his strength and ability before? Her mind immediately thought of Ikkaku who always dreamed of meeting an opponent with the boy's power, pictured the exhilarated thrill in Ikkaku's eyes if he was in her position right now, the way he'd lick his lips like a hungry snake ready to pounce on its prey. What he wouldn't give to go up against someone like him, she thought... The least she could give him was the satisfaction of the details of how she defeated the ryoka.

Feeling her heart pound excitedly, she drew out her katana and slid her right foot forward. Her mind trembled as she calculated possible moves, sized up his reitsu and pondered whether the immense size of his zanpaktou's blade was a sign of his potential but his lack of skill in controlling that awesome power, while her hand remained firm on Kuritonbo's handle. She was about to tell the boy her name, her rank, that before marrying into the 6th division she was a seated officer of the 11th, and had once belonged to that group of warriors who fought without fear or holding back, who only accepted victory, as defeat meant the same thing as death. She didn't want to cause him harm, but if he insisted on fighting, all her nature, all that's in her blood will undoubtedly force her to defeat him and she would feel no remorse, even if it meant killing him.

But the ryoka was the first to speak.

"Don't," the boy said, interrupting her thoughts as he finally regained his breath and stood up straight. "I don't want to fight. You're _her_, aren't you? This is where _he_ lives?"

She watched the boy closely and waited wordlessly for him to say more, refusing to back down from her offensive stance or to lower her blade.

Ichigo looked sadly at her. He never expected that the truth would simply leap out of his mouth, but he never believed that he'd be overwhelmed by this feeling of guilt and sadness. Now the words stuck to his throat and he couldn't bring himself to tell her the truth...Once everyone remembered Rukia, she will vanish from Soul Society. The world will return to the way it was before, and she will fade away along with everything else in this transient, alternate reality.

It wasn't only as a courtesy to Renji that he came to visit her. His own heart told him it was wrong to let her simply disappear without giving her a reasonable explanation, or warning her of what was to come. This woman was important to Renji, and he felt this was evident, because out of all people she became the one to take Rukia's place in his heart.

But now, standing in front of her, for reasons he could not explain, the truth was much harder to translate than he had imagined.

It didn't help that she refused to listen to him.

Clutching the handle of her Zanpakto in both hands, Yanagi glared at him. He had been on the receiving end of many glares in the past, and in her eyes he caught a glimpse of Rukia's coldness, Ikkaku's desire to win, Renji's contemptuousness and his own determination, his own resolve...

"Renji said you know Bankai. Why wasn't Renji able to kill a kid like you? How could you fight against Komamura and survive?" She ran the palm of her hand over the cool blade which emitted a cold purple glow. "Ikkaku will be so jealous. Do you know how long he's been searching for an opponent as powerful as you? He's been dying of hunger for nearly a hundreds years...Craving for a truly satisfying fight with someone whose abilities are worthy...I wonder if you'd be a match for him? Can you defeat him? Whatever it takes, I have to beat you, just for the satisfaction of seeing the look on his face, the thrill in his eyes when I describe each time I dodged your attack, each time I cut into you, or felt your blade slice through my flesh..."

But fighting and spilling blood was the very last thing on Ichigo's mind. He quickly raised his own blade, but only to defend his body from being pierced by a rain of knives that hurtled towards him aiming for his heart. All of them missed, but a stray one cut across his eyebrow that sent a stream of hot blood gushing down past the corner of his eye, and another ripped through the bicep of his left arm.

Her stamina and agility surprised him. What he saw and felt were the power of fifty blades pounding against his zanpakuto - when he wiped the blood from his eyes, and saw clearly after the dizziness in his head faded - were only four small silver knives, slender and sharp. She held two in each hand.

Yet his mind buzzed with thoughts and questions such as what should I say to her? How do I tell her?

She lunged him again with her teeth bared. He pulled his sword in front of his body and deflected the two knives hurtling for this chest. Quickly he twisted his wrist, and in a split second, swept his zanpakuto to the left and right sides of his body, easily saving both his ears from being hashed off by the remaining two.

"Come and fight back!" she yelled at him. "Fight with your true power!"

What did he ever do to make her so angry? He fumed as he blocked two more direct attacks from Yanagi, doing his best to keep her at a distance and leave her unscathed.

But then Zangetsu was getting a bit scratched up. Ichigo was starting to feel he had had enough. He couldn't let things drag on like this.

"Listen to me!" he shouted sternly, trying desperately for a peaceful end one last time. "Don't... I didn't come here to fight you! I need to tell you something very important! Soul society is..."

Again, he raised his sword to block the onslaught of blades raining down on him like purple hail.

His scandals gripped the floor, steadily he came to a standstill on the mat, and he tightened his hold on Zangetsu. Okay...you asked for it, he thought, and Ichigo narrowed his eyes and took aim.

"Getsuga Tenshou!"

The force of Zangetsu's attack propelled her backwards and sent her hurtling through the air. The house shook and the roof caved in, ceramic tiles from the roof smashed down to the floor. By a stroke of luck she was able to dodge the attack but instead crashed into the far wall. The force of the attack sent books flying in all directions, and all came raining down on top of her.

Ichigo rushed to the other side of the room where broken pieces of the roof and the walls lay in a morbid heap, with Yanagi buried at the very bottom. Yet before he could get there a deep cry rang in his ears and he raised his arms to shield his eyes from the blinding crimson glow exploding from the smoking pile.

"Hado 31...Shakkaho!"

The mound of books, broken wood, and smashed tiles flew apart, and Yanagi stood up from the ruins. She patted off the dust on her robe and hair, and returned to face him, composed, almost entirely unscathed.

Seeing that she wasn't her, Ichigo sighed, relieved. She looked annoyed as ever, but perhaps now she's ready to listen to reason, he thought naively.

"Listen to me, Yanagi-san," he uttered, tightening his fists. "You're going to disappear. Right at this moment Renji's starting to remember Rukia. Very soon he'll remember that this is not the world that he belongs to. That this life is only temporary and it's going to vanish when things return to normal. And you...you don't exist in our world. I came here to warn you that you're going to disappear...And he's going to lose his memories of you..."

"You've completely lost your mind..." the woman shook her head in disbelief. "What you're saying is completely insane... I've known Renji ever since we were kids. We trained together at the shino academy, entered soul society together, and slaved away in the 11th division fighting alongside those two crazies ('baldy' and 'narcissa') and Captain Zaraki, for more than fifty years. And...and... just last fall, in front of everyone we know, we promised to spend the rest of our lives together! How dare you say that this world is a lie? How could Renji possibly forget about me..." Gradually she stopped yelling. On second thought it was probably a trick of the wind but for a moment there the boy believed he heard her voice quiver. If only he could have noticed...at the corner of those eyes glaring menacingly back at Ichigo, was a small puddle of tears threatening to tumble to the ground...

But he did notice a certain glint in her eyes. Something about it troubled him. But before he could figure out what that was, the earth started to shake violently. Instinctively Ichigo bent his knees, clenched Zangetsu's hilt, and braced himself for the worst.

"Hyomen tekina!"

This time his eyes did not trick him. A giant dragon made out of hundreds of shiny steel blades rose from the ground. Ichigo gaped at its immense size as the dragon stretched it neck and lifted it's head higher and higher above the Abarai's now non-existent roof.

"This is your...Bankai?"

"No," she answered sternly.

Ichigo shivered as he looked at it's glowing red eyes. The reitsu this gigantic beast was emitting was so overpowering that he felt his legs start to buckle. His feet start to slide away in retreat. By looking at her she didn't look like someone who had achieved Bankai. But this monster's spiritual power, as well as its size, could have easily matched that of Komamura's armored giant. How could it be?

But soon, the answer became clear to Ichigo.

So that's how it is...He thought and a knowing grin crept up to his face. I guess there's no other way around it then. You pushed me to my limit Yanagi! I have to do this to bring an end to this meaningless fight!

Hoping that his instinct was telling him the truth, Ichigo closed his eyes. In the semi-darkness, thwarted only by the sunlight flooding in from the damaged roof, he listened to the whistle of the knives speeding through the air, and waited for his chance to reveal itself to him.

The metal dragon roared, opened its mouth and charged towards Ichigo. The moment its snout collided with ichigo's sword, the beast broke into a million sparkling pieces. One particular sharp fragment shaved past and left a light cut on his left cheek. Suddenly Ichigo opened his eyes. The dragon had disintegrated and before his eyes a thousand red dragonflies swarmed around him beating their glassy wings wildly.

Out of the corner of his eyes, among the bustling mass of insects, he noticed Yanagi running towards him, a knife in her tightly clenched fist. Just as his instinct had told him. Ichigo thought as he grinned contentedly, relieved, as he watched her hand fly up ready to come crashing down straight for his heart...

Just when the tip of the blade was an inch away from his chest, Ichigo frowned at last, his eyes showing determination, and against all reason, he lowered his sword...

The enemy was suddenly vulnerable, entirely exposed.

But in the face of this long hoped for opportunity, Yanagi's eyes widened with fear and bewilderment. What was this...A miscalculation? A ruse? Unable to reach a conclusion, Yanagi leapt back until her fingers touched the wall at the far side of the room.

"I thought so...The way you fight...You know Ikkaku? You won't turn your back on the enemy, you won't fight when they've dropped their defenses...And the esctasy in your voice when you talk about fighting..." he panted, allowing sweat to roll freely down his face as the smile of a kid who had scored the winning goal glowed on his face.

"You! Why did you..."

"I told you. I won't fight you. You can cut me all you want and still I won't raise Zangetsu against you. As long as you let me finish what I have to say..."

Without warning, as if wanting to affirm the truth in his words, Yanagi hurled her knives at him.

He didn't even dodge. One hit his shoulder blade. Another skimmed dangerously close to his throat and became lodged inside the wall. The third knife soared over his head and a handful of orange hair drifted slowly down to the floor. Ichigo lifted his free hand to check the bleeding on his neck. He cringed slightly as he plucked the knife from his shoulder and let it fall to the ground with a dull clatter.

"Go ahead," he sighed. "You've got one more..."

But Yanagi squeezed the handle of the fourth and last knife and it quickly dissolved into a mist of light purple reitsu.

"You said I'm going to disappear. Just like that? I never existed. Is that it?" Her voice suddenly turned tired, and she sounded defeated.

Ichigo nodded.

"And Rukia, who is this woman?"

"Renji met her when they were children."

"And he's known her for his entire life in the world you're from?"

"They entered the Shino Academy together as students. Together they decided as they were standing by their old friends' graves that they could not continue living in Inuzuri..."

"And she's important to him? She is the most important person to him?"

_Yes_ was the easiest answer, but somehow Ichigo couldn't bring himself to say just that...

"They've always been very close. But they lost touch for a while when the Kuchiki clan adopted Rukia... but Renji didn't forget about Rukia as he still cherished the memories of their childhood. He vowed to grow stronger so he could close the gap between them. When Rukia was almost executed for lending her power to me, Renji trained for three days straight, barely eating and sleeping, to learn Bankai so he could battle Kuchiki Byakuya face to face and convince him to save Rukia's life...

"I'm very sorry. But it has to happen. Renji needs to remember he knows Bankai, so together we can save Soul Society and return it to its former self. We can save this world, free Kenpachi, restore Kurotsuchi and everyone else's memories...

"For that to happen Renji has to remember Rukia..."

* * *

"I'm very sorry about your house."

"Forget about it. The 'Kurin' squad's got geniuses who can fix trivial damages such as these in a heartbeat."

Ichigo looked down at the blood flowing down her arm and dripping off her fingertips. Red blood, like everyone else's.

"Wait here, I'll go get Hanatarou to come take a look at your injuries."

It was only then that Yanagi noticed her black robe was drenched in blood and the smell that was waltzing morbidly through the air. She had been too focused on the fight to realize she was hurt. That was always her bad habit and the Shinigami of the 4th division always hated that about her. Once she fainted in the middle of a training session with Ikkaku. They had been fighting for two hours straight. The worst pair to duel against each other as both of them were equally stubborn and neither person could endure the shame of backing down and admitting defeat. It was only after Renji returned to the training barracks, his eyes widening in disbelief and terror as he saw his two friends trying to tear each other apart, and yelled at them to stop that she noticed she had lost a whole barrel of blood. Hearing Renji's panicking voice and finally seeing the blood flow from her body, she instantly felt her vision deteriorating. Her arms grew limp, her sword clattered to the ground, her knees buckled. Darkness surrounded her before she even hit the ground.

But as the boy said, she never existed. So how could those memories have taken place? She never fought against Ikkaku, never got drunk with Ikkaku, Rangiku-san and Hisagi Shuuhei. She never met Renji, never grew up with Renji, never married Renji...Renji...who probably never called out her name with such fear and worry in his voice...

In short she had never lived, never played a significant part in anyone's life. Even this blood was probably fake. This body too...She was losing so much blood yet her vision and mind were clear like the cloudless sky above her. Her legs did not shake and her grip on Kuritonbo was as firm as ever. She could not recall this ever happening before. Was the fact that she felt this way after he had spilled the truth of her existence to her merely a coincidence, or was this really evidence proving everything he told her was true?

She glanced outside briefly. Finally snow had started to melt. The melting icicles hanging from what was left of her roof made it look like it had started to rain.

"I'm coming with you, Ichigo. I'll consider myself lucky if I meet someone from the 4th on the way. If not, I'm feeling fine, not light-headed or anything, for better or worse, I think I'm fine..."

"What?! Who is the idiot now?! You've lost an insane amount of blood! At this rate you're going to kill yourself if you keep at it!"

"I'm not staying behind while you save the world! Anyway Renji and everyone I know will be there too...I demand my share of the fun too! Why should you always be the hero?!"

"I knew it, just tell me, you must know Ikkaku...More than friends by the looks of it..."

"Compare me to that bald monkey again and I'll..."

Ichigo grinned back at her like an old friend.

"You ready?"

Together the orange-haired shinigami and the woman who would soon cease to exist kicked their heels against the dust and vanished in an instant, leaving behind them the Abarai house that stood alone in ruins beneath the basking sun, surrounded by snow that was already starting to fade away.

* * *

2.

After the battle was won; when the clouds cleared, the rain stopped and Rukia's tears dried, Yanagi finally saw a chance to take a look at this woman whose existence was meant to replace her own.

The Rukia who stood before her was not the same Rukia Yanagi had imagined. To be honest Yanagi wasn't even sure what she was expecting, and anyway, it's not like it would have made anything better. What difference would there be if Rukia was taller, if her hair was longer, or if...This was the woman who her husband and the ryoka were risking their lives to protect. And _she_ was real. _She_ belonged to their world while Yanagi didn't. She was the person Renji truly cared for and Yanagi had only ever been a replacement...

Her only source of comfort was that she had never lied to herself.

She had fallen in love and she had been true to those feelings, she had cared for some people and she had fought hard to protect them, sometimes putting her own life on the line so no one could hurt them, so they wouldn't disappear.

Replacement or not, she had existed in this reality, and by existing she had played some part in molding it the way it had become. She had existed in this world, this world where she lived and fought and drank and laughed with her friends and with the man she loved. Together with her friends she had made some difference to this world, and most importantly she had experienced the time they spent together wholly and completely...

In a way, Yanagi felt confronting what was to come was similar to confronting death.

She was saddened by the thought of leaving, and the further thought that no one would remember her drove her to a darker realm of despair.

Urahara stepped close and squeezed her shoulder. She turned her head, meeting his eyes that suddenly filled with sympathy.

" It's going to take some time for everyone to fully regain their memories..." he said kindly, "if you want to say something to someone, this is your last chance." Feeling that some dark thought was holding her back, he added gently, "And don't think you don't matter because of what Ichigo told you. Before that time arrives they will still remember everything about you. You are still you and this is still the world that you've always known. Before that happens, before they remember Rukia, here is and has always been where you belong..."

* * *

3.

She tiptoed out onto the wooden veranda and round him sitting in the shadows cast by the setting sun. Silently Ikkaku rolled his eyes. What was she trying to accomplish - sneaking into his room like that? The woman was terrible as usual at hiding her reitsu, and contrary to what she must think, Ikkaku was not as idiotic as he appeared. He sighed lightly, but realistically he was never one to beat around the bush.

"Hyomen tekina..." he raised his voice sharply just before she could softly slide the door shut. Ikkaku grinned devilishly as behind him the not-so-secret intruder jumped up in surprise. He could feel her eyes glaring holes into the back of his head. Utterly unfazed though, he continued: "Ichigo saw right through the trick, didn't he?" she frowned as she noticed the all too familiar mocking tone in his voice.

"What trick?" she retorted stubbornly.

"Don't play coy," Ikkaku grunted, "The one where you use Kuritonbo's special ability...What's it called again? Anyway, it only tricks the enemy into thinking that it carries an immense amount of power. In truth you've only borrowed the reitsu from the atmosphere around you. It's an amusing trick and it did you good at times...but Ichigo must have realized it and realized that you have no way of mastering and manipulating that power as your own...He must have felt that the huge dragon had to be a diversion for someone else more dangerous..."

She sighed loudly, cutting him short as she plopped down beside him. "How'd you know I used that ability...?"

"That enormous amount of reitsu concentrated in one area of Soul Society...Are you really stupid enough to think it would go unnoticed? Even someone with absolutely no spiritual power wouldn't be so blind that they would not see _Godzilla_ looming over Seireitei...At a point it got larger than Komamura's Bankai! You really think we would have missed it?"

But Yanagi was not listening to him. Incredulous that she ignored his question Ikkaku turned around, ready to scold and bicker, but only to see a wallop of fat tears rolling down her eyes.

"We married last fall when the leaves were just beginning to turn red. You were there and you watched as we exchanged our vows..." she sobbed, choking on her own misery.

Unsure of what to do Ikkaku replied in his usual spiteful and insensitive manner: "Do you really have to remind me of it? It was the most boring day of my life. Nothing but music, dancing, that sort of crap...there was a lot of talking too come to think of it, nope sorry I can't remember any of it...You exchanged rings and kissed at sunset and I drank sake 'til I blacked out. Come to think of it that way, it was a pretty good day. You've got great taste in drink as a couple, I'll give you that!" he exclaimed with a self-satisfied grin.

"What about my memories. Everything I've been through, with you guys, with Renji...Don't they matter anymore? Is that all I am then? A replacement? A bottle-stopper to prevent something terrible from happening to soul society? Does he think that's all I'm good for?Coming to my house, no destroying my house to tell me that I don't exist? Who does he think he is?!

He stuck his little finger in his ear and began rummaging about for some kind of buried treasure.

"You didn't ask him to elaborate on that?" He suggested halfheartedly.

There was a time, years ago, when Yanagi would not have easily forgiven him for using such a condescending tone. Yet Ikkaku still cringed at the memory of those times her palm came crashing down like a lethal fly-swatter onto the back of his neck.

He reached for his own bottle of sake and slid it over to her side. She welcomed it like an old friend into the palm of her hand.

"What would he know? He came here only to save Rukia, to see her again... What would he know about me?" She gulped.

The sake was helping, her tears were starting to subside. Taking another swig of the cool drink Yanagi sniffed and looked to Ikkaku, her eyes were red from crying.

"Hey...what do you think Ikkaku? Do you think I'm not real? When you look back on all these years we've known each other, do you question whether everything we've been through together is real?"

"What have we been through?"

"Don't scare me like that, idiot! Why are you going all philosophical on me now of all times?!"

"No," he scratched his shiny head. When dust got caught in his fingernails, he dug it out with his thumb and he blew it away. It was a disgusting sight that Yanagi once cringed at the sight of. But she was so used to it now that she no longer gave it a second thought.

"If you're going to disappear and Ichigo already said that there's nothing we can do, I don't think there's anything we can do..."

Kneeling just outside the room; with his ear flattened against the closed shoji doors, Yumichika almost choked as he caught Ikkaku saying this. "When did you become such a defeatist Ikkaku?!" He whispered warily in disbelief. "How could you just give up like that? I don't recognize you anymore, Ikkaku!" Yumichika was so upset that he tore his ear from the paper sliding door, turned around and broke away at an alarming speed. It is unclear where he dashed off to, but certainly h

"But even if the situation is hopeless and there's nothing we can do to fix it, maybe if you tell me the whole story again, I'll remember you, _us_...Maybe I'll remember you, and all we've been through together, even if nobody else does..."

"Are you crazy Ikkaku? Aren't you going to do something? I just told you I'm going to disappear for crying out loud, and the only solution you can come up with is for me to recite our entire history to you?!" She got to her feet and marched angrily away from him. "And you're just gonna sit back and let this cruel thing happen to me? you idiot! If you're not gonna help me I'll find someone else who will!"

Quite delirious, and completely unable to believe that he would not help her, she stormed away in protest and made sure the door slammed shut with an extra loud thud.

Alone, Ikkaku stared off into the distance. He sat still - not stirring from the spot as he watched patiently for the last remaining rays of light to disappear from the sky. Every few minutes he scratched his head and tossed the dirt into the wind with a bored expression on his face. Few Shinigami who passed by glanced curiously at him from over the wall, but knowing his temper, nobody came to bother him. Nobody could guess why he wasn't out drinking with Vice-Captains Iba, Matsumoto and Hisagi tonight. Surprisingly, even Yachiru forgot to drop by to tease him, and all evening, Ikkaku just sat quietly by himself on the veranda, unperturbed by what was going to happen, as if the world was dead to him.

But when the sun finally set and the world was engulfed once more in darkness, Ikkaku bowed his head and buried his face deep inside the palm of his hand. He remained like this for a very long time.

_Dammit...Is there really nothing I can do?! _He cried over and over under his breath as he waited for the moment to arrive when Yanagi walked out on his memories...

* * *

Thanks for reading! I know it's a little less than perfect - a little OOC, a little MarySue - but I really appreciate that you've read it.

All reviews are welcome~ ^_^


	2. Chapter 2

**As She Fades to Black**

Part 2.

Goodbye, All My Friends

* * *

Next she went to say goodbye to her husband and to see her old house one last time. Renji was already inside, his sandals lay one on top of the other at the entrance suggesting he had hastily kicked them off as he rushed crossly inside. She trod lightly down the hall, brushing her hand against the wall. They had lived in this house for almost decade and a half. Not very long considering most Shinigami can live on for centuries, but just long enough so that every speck of their reitsu had soaked into every inch of their house. Opening her eyes, Yanagi bounded straight for the room at the far west end of the house where Renji's reitsu was strongest and saw her husband there, sitting too close to the entrance, bent over something that had completely captured his attention.

"Oi," she uttered simply, trying to keep a straight face, motioning for him to move further into the room so she could step inside. "Yo," he replied in like. He frowned slightly when he saw her eyes were red. He raised his eyebrows. _You okay?_ And in response Yanagi shook her head and shrugged. _Don't worry about it._

"You should get Ikkaku to teach you how to hide your reitsu, I knew you were here like ages ago." he said, shuffling his body back to give Yanagi space.

Usually, depending on her mood, she would have sneered or pouted at the suggestion. It's not as though she never tried to improve. But everytime she tried, soon Ikkaku would get fed up with trying to teach her. The last time he told her she should give up the entire venture as she had absolutely no talent. Yet, he said trying to lift her spirits when he was the one who had brought them down in the first place, it wasn't as though she had no choice but to hide her presence. "I mean, you're not part of the Onmitsukido and we never go near the second division..." he paused, glancing sideways at her suspiciously. "Unless you've resorted to the lowly scheme of sneaking up on people to gain an upper hand..." in response to which she angrily challenged Ikkaku to a dare and he was forced to buy 'autumn special - limited edition red bean rice cake soup' for both of them when they left his underground training plot for the small, picturesque garden close to the 11th division barracks.

Today she ignored Renji altogether as her mind was occupied by a million other things.

"Did Ichigo say anything to you?"

"Like what?"

Like I'll disappear from the world tonight...like you'll have no memory of who I am, and when morning comes it'll be just as though I had never existed.

"Nothing important that I can recall. Though he did do an awful lot of yelling," Renji said.

"What've you got there?"

"You know I'd probably have forgotten about this if you hadn't left our house in a wreck..."

"What is it, a jewelry box?"

He showed her his hands so she could see it herself.

Blue on the outside, and slightly cracked at the bottom, the box fit in his large hand like a small egg in a nest.

She didn't know where she had seen it before but it looked vaguely familiar. Slowly Yanagi took off the lid...

All of a sudden, there it was, the memory flashed like a bolt of lightening before her eyes. She felt a surge of electricity rush up her spine and butterflies began fluttering madly about inside her stomach. "This..."

Quietly he waited for her to remember and smiled nostalgically when she told her what she thought it was.

The tiny doll built from leaves and twigs in her hand was a token from their childhood. They had lived together for so long that sometimes they would forget their friendship had once endured a very rusty beginning.

"I never thought I'd see this again. Do you still remember what happened on that summer?"

"Let's see, we were children, we promised to meet each other on top of the hill overlooking the city. The leaves were falling. It was a very blustery morning so they kept getting blown all over the place by the wind. I was the first to arrive. It was incredibly chilly but I still waited for you to show up. You didn't come until 3 o'clock in the afternoon. To make the time pass by I picked up some leaves, a few twigs and fashioned this little guy," she said pointing to the leaf doll. "We weren't really nice to each other back then were we? You teased me in front of your friends and never kept your promises. I had a bad temper. I yelled a lot and bullied you into giving me your takoyaki..."

"Yeah I did hate that about you."

He lifted his head. "The Kurin squad fixed up the roof and the walls but we've got to clean up whatever mess is inside. Good luck they said when they left..." he looked around, "come on, let's get a move on," he sighed, accepting the colossal task with no further objection than a slight shrug of his shoulders.

As they sorted through the rubble, they talked a little about this and a little about that. They revisited fond memories as they placed the odd trinkets and books back onto the shelves. At first the casualness of his tone and the mundanity of their conversation bothered her. Her life had changed completely, yet he was still going about his usual life without a word of comfort or a thought to how upset she might be. "Why do you even care to tidy up this house?" she wanted to yell, "Renji, after I disappear none of this is going to matter! You're going to forget about this place, you probably won't be living here. It'll just be some other broken building and you'll simply walk past without giving it a second glance..."

After a while however she grew accustomed to the calm, and realized how suitable it was that her last day here would be spent sorting through the remnants of her so-called past. Soon she felt lucky that everything felt so normal, she could almost convince herself that nothing was going to change.

"You know what I just realized?" he said with a mischievous grin on his face, startling her from her thoughts. "You forgot to say it..."

"Hm?"

"After all those years you forced me to learn to say it whenever I came home... yet you don't seem to remember at all!

"But nevermind," he mentioned softly when he saw Yanagi's mind was somewhere faraway. Renji went on putting books back onto the shelves, the room was silent for a moment, but then an inkling popped in his mind and he thought he'd ask her. If anyone knew the answer it would be his wife.

"When did I finally achieve Bankai...do you have any recollection at all?

"While Ichigo and I rushed to Captain Kurotsuchi's lab, Ichigo said something that suddenly made me determined to save this Shinigami called Rukia. Just as I resolved to save her, the name 'Hihio Zabimaru' jumped up in my mind. I trusted my instincts and I called out that name. In that instant I was surrounded by this red glow...you really should've seen it Yana!" his eyes lit up in excitement "Zabimaru's form changed completely! I can ride on it and even my outfit changed! It was absolutely amazing!"

But then he frowned again and his eyebrows furrowed, "Only thing is I can't recall when I learned how to use it...Nobody can just suddenly know how to use Bankai overnight..."

As she suspected he really did know nothing. Wasn't the fact that he had remembered his Bankai proof that his memories of Rukia were already coming back?

She couldn't decide whether this was good or bad, but not wanting to waste her final moments scrutinizing something that might not mean anything at all, she just smiled, taking it all in.

"What if I said you knew it all along? But you just forgot..."

"Come to think of it that guy Ichigo said the same thing. He kept on yelling at me, bugging me to remember this girl called Rukia. She must be important to him for him to go to such lengths... He actually tried to convince me that this world is a dream and sooner or later we're going to wake up to this alternative reality where we're all friends with that girl Rukia..."

"Did you believe him?"

"I don't know... But I did ask him this: what other reality would I ever want to live in? I mean..." he paused and looked around the room one last time, "I've got a pretty good life here, with you. Why would I want to be anywhere else?"

Before he could finish speaking Yanagi's line of sight started to blur. Her head suddenly felt as light as a feather and her heart pounding loudly as if it were ready to leap out from her chest.

Renji sighed loudly, why did girls have to all pick the same day to cry? But since this time it was the woman he loved, he reached out to take her hand and pulled her into his arms, embracing her tightly in his usual manner - like this was the last day they would know each other, like this was the last chance he had to show her just how much he loved her.

* * *

Silently, she watched Renji run up and down the hallway with a soggy towel in his hand. It took them a couple of hours but the house was completely back to normal. The Kurin squad had repaired the severe damages so expertly that Yanagi felt she might have dreamed up her earlier battle with Ichigo. Looking around, everything appeared exactly the same. She felt she could easily convince herself that this was just another ordinary day, and that tomorrow she would continue her incredibly ordinary existence.

Again a wistful feeling came over her. Gazing down the hall, at the series of wooden beams keeping the ceiling from crashing down and holding the walls in check, a light turned on in her head and she realized what it was she forgot to say.

"Tadaima," she whispered. Almost immediately a wave of relief caught her unawares. Specks of dust got caught in the light that spilled in from the side window when a cloud moved away from the sun.

"Okaeri."

Yanagi spun around to see Renji standing behind her, the damp and dirty towel tossed over his shoulder.

"You idiot why did you sneak up on me like that?!" she yelled, trying to conceal the blush spreading across her cheeks by pretending to be angry.

He seemed just as startled at her outburst as she was at his unexpected reply.

"What are you doing mumbling to yourself like a crazy person?!" he shouted back.

* * *

Soon the Abarai house descended back to its usual, boisterous self. The loud bickering escaped the open windows and the four people who stumbled towards the door clearly heard someone shout "weird eyebrows!" and a man's voice snap "taiyaki-thief!"

"They're at it again..." one of the four muttered. His voice was glum and downcast. He displayed a vice-captain's badge on his arm but it was too dark to see the insignia to know which division he belonged to.

"I'm glad," this time it was a woman's voice, high-pitched but gentle. By the look of her shadow, she had a very slight figure and she was much shorter than the other three. "I had a strange feeling today that something had changed. I couldn't quite place a finger on it, but I'm relieved that yanagi and Renji are still their old fiery selves!"

"Why is he calling her takoyaki-thief? I don't think I've heard that one before," groaned a big-breasted woman who had just stepped into the light of a bystanding lamp, she had glowing red cheeks and her breath was laced with the smell of alcohol.

The fourth person was too drunk to comment and only grunted in assent. He had to lean on his friend to walk and started shouting the lyrics to a popular song at the top of his voice as they reached the entrance of the Abarai's house. Momo and Kira came to a halt before the door, but Hisagi and Rangiku stormed straight past them and slid open the door with such brute force that it hit the wooden frame with an ear-splitting bang.

"Alrighty, alrighty, let's end it here shall we?" Rangiku churned drunkenly as she burst into the house "The entire world knows you love each other very much so there's absolutely no point in trying to prove otherwise by arguing...so stop shouting and go get us some drinks to celebrate the end of a long, hard day!"

Hisagi grunted in approval while Momo and Kira smiled at their hosts apologetically.

Yanagi and Renji ogled speechlessly at the four intruders.

Only Yanagi recovered quickly and disappeared from Renji's side. The walls rattled and the floors quivered as she darted down the corridor and stretched out her arms to hug her friends.

They looked startled. "What's going on?" Rangiku squealed, and Hisagi wheezed in surprise.

Slowly and steadily, the air filled with the sound of yanagi's sobs. At first it was only a single tear, but the first one drew out another, that one dragged another, and seconds later a rapid stream of tears tumbled from the corners of her eyes, and there was nothing she could do to stop them.

"Kurosawa-san, are you okay?" Kira said, both concerned and obviously uncomfortable being hugged by this weeping woman.

Momo also asked anxiously, "Yanagi-chan what's wrong?"

Hisagi appeared to have passed out already and didn't make a sound.

But Rangiku understood. She smiled warmly and ruffled Yanagi's hair. Rangiku probably didn't know why Yanagi was crying. She didn't know that her friend would not be here tomorrow. But Rangiku remembered how she had bawled on Yanagi's shoulder the day Gin fled soul society with the traitor Aizen. Back then, she recalled, Yanagi hadn't said much to comfort her either. Yanagi simply sat beside her, patted her hair, and stayed with her for the entire evening until rangiku had run out of tears. At the time nothing could fill the giant hole that Gin left in her heart, but after she stopped crying, and the sadness clouding her mind had drained away, she saw she had hope remaining inside her, and that gave her strength to continue. Rangiku didn't understand why Yanagi was crying since the man she loved was standing right behind her. She gave Renji a look but he only shrugged, unable to cast any light on the matter. But she stayed standing for as long as she could. She cautioned Kira against breaking away and held onto Hisagi until her arm was sore so Yanagi could have a shoulder to cry on for as long as it took for her to see that she had plenty of strength to continue...

* * *

Afterwards, all six of them went up to the roof for cold drinks and to see the 12th division's scheduled display of fireworks.

The green and blue fireworks reminded her of the leaf doll and the blue box he kept it in.

Red, pink, and yellow...

Then, halfway into the show, an orange firework lit up the night sky and she realized there was one more person she wanted to see. She thought it best to sneak away quietly in the darkness without her friends noticing. But just as she turned around the leave the tip of her zanpaktou hit a tile and the dull thud alerted Rangiku of her movements.

"Where are you going?" Rangiku blurted out, seeing her tiptoe towards the edge of the roof.

"Aren't you staying for the end of the show?" Momo wondered aloud, just as the next firework whistled and shot up to the sky. "I heard the finale is going to be amazing tonight!" She shouted, straining to be heard above the blooming explosion.

"I just though of something I still have to do."

"You sure you don't want us to come with you?" said Rangiku who was still obviously worried about her.

"I'll be fine. Don't worry. Ittekuru!"

The last phrase burst from her mouth before she could be aware of what she was saying. But the replies she heard from the people behind her filled her heart with warmth and happiness. Perhaps she was not meant to exist. Perhaps soon her illusive existence must cease, but in this moment, while she was still with the people she loved, she felt more alive than ever before.

"Itterashai! We'll be waiting!"

She leapt from the roof, dematerialized in a smoky blur, and vaulted towards her last destination.

* * *

Many thanks for coming back to read~ I hope you all enjoyed it! :3


	3. Chapter 3

**As She Fades to Black**

Part 3.

As She Fades to Black

* * *

When she found him, Ichigo was by himself on Sokyoku cliff. Above his head the fireworks blossomed and filled the bleak night sky with many colourful lights. Ichigo was surprised to see her approach. He'd expected her to arrive much later. Earlier in the day, after performing some odd calculations in his head, Urahara had announced that everyone's memory of Yanagi would remain intact until midnight. They had agreed to meet just before that so she could have time to say goodbye to the people she loved.

Why was she here so early? He wondered as he waved and smiled when she joined him. "That was quick," Ichigo observed.

She shrugged. "Never much to say," she replied.

They watched in silent awe as a green firework soared up to the sky and split into a million pieces.

"What is Soul Society like?" she asked suddenly. "I mean, the Soul Society where you come from...what's it like?"

"It's not so bad. The buildings look the same, the people are the same..."

"But she's not here and you don't like it that way. You want to return to the world as you knew it."

He wasn't sure how to respond. But a thought he had waved aside earlier, somehow made it back to his mind.

"Yanagi-san..." he began slowly, his mouth adjusting to the size of the words. "There's something you should know. I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier..."

Yanagi looked up expectantly.

"I saw something in his eyes. At first I thought it was just a trick of the light. I didn't really want to believe what I saw. I hated him for thinking even for a second that he could leave things the way it is, and not even try to recover what we've lost.

"He told me that maybe it was better if he didn't remember Rukia and I truly wanted to murder him right then and there. Even now I'll bet his still blocking out those memories, fighting to keep them from returning to his mind. You understand why he's being so reluctant don't you?"

She didn't have time to answer, and he never got the chance to explain. A loud bang vibrated through the air as Renji materialized before them. His eyes were wide with trepidation and he called out to her with a fearful tremble in his voice that she'd never heard before.

"Yana..."

Renji walked up to her hurriedly.

"You left before the finale..." there was a question lingering at the brink of his voice...

* * *

"I might've had too much to drink tonight..." said Renji, "but hey, do you remember if I showed up when I was supposed to meet with you that autumn day on the hilltop overlooking Inuzuri? My head's all in a blur. Suddenly I can't remember how we first met, or how we came to Soul Society, and what you looked like when you were ten years old... I thought we'd grow old together, but tonight I got a very bad feeling that that's not going to happen... And why can't I get the image of _her_ out of my head? That woman we saved today, I forgot her name...yes, Rukia - that girl... I see me and her surrounded by the graves of our friends. Yana...tell me... did we know her back then? It's strange I have no memory of her, yet, why is her face and figure filtering into all my memories?"

Yanagi was silent. She was at a loss for words. Thankfully though, it seemed that Renji wasn't expecting to hear anything from her. He kept talking. In his confused state he wanted to organize the memories that were starting to disintegrate. He needed to talk to remain clear on what was real and what wasn't. He forced his mind to remember that Yanagi was real, and this other woman who was infiltrating his mind was not.

"Why did you cry when Rangiku and the others showed up? I feel like I'm losing you and I don't understand why...if you're going somewhere you'd tell me right? Don't just go away without saying anything..."

She had never seen him like this. His face was contorted in sorrow so that the tattoos above his almost non-existent eyebrows became rumpled and uneven.

Ichigo was also surprised, and quickly averted his eyes, unable to bear witness to this last sad, private moment. Yet the conversation flowing between the two people beside him continued flooding into his ears.

"I had a clear vision of our future," Renji went on. His sentences had started running into each other. I don't know if you thought about it much but I did. I used to lose sleep all the time thinking about what our future. At first many unrealistic thoughts flocked into my head. But gradually, the more I thought about it, it was always the very simple desires that started to stand out. Like I told you before, I wanted us to have a strong, healthy baby and we can watch him grow up. I want us to be frustrated and sad together when he grows old and moves out of our house. I want you to be there when I get my first white hair and laugh with you when you first get yours. And just a moment ago I got this very bad feeling...I felt the future I envisioned for us was going to vanish at any moment. I had to see you..."

In a final fit of despair he took her in his arms and kissed her. And tears streamed down his eyes when he realized he could not recall experiencing this sensation ever before.

Her hands, still holding onto his shoulders only seconds ago, were dissolving into a stream of sparkling purple mist. The mist curved in the air and trailed up towards the skies, gradually drifting into nothingness.

Then he let go of her. Renji stepped back and tears filled her eyes when she saw Renji staring blankly at her. Was it already happening? She saw him look at her with a searching look in his eyes.

Who was this woman? Renji wondered. Her elbows scattered into a million glowing pieces dancing in front of them. Simultaneously he heard himself reply, her name's Yanagi. She's your wife. You love her. Then the first voice would retort angrily. _What about Rukia you idiot?!_

Half of him seemed to vaguely remember her from a long long time ago. Yet at the same time the remaining half of him felt they had just spoken minutes ago.

"Everything you just said. I wanted all of those things too." the woman whispered softly, holding out a disintegrating arm to touch his face.

But he didn't seem to hear her and he took a step back. She watched him back further away from her with a look of unreconciliable pain. He looked at Ichigo, wondering what part he played in all of this. The confusion and shock was too much for him. A million images flooded into his brain and he felt his head would split apart with all the conflicting memories that were rushing back to him all at the same moment. He held his head in his hands, cried out in pain. His legs buckled and he grunted, almost falling to his knees.

Ichigo's eyes flew open. He mumbled something accusatory under his breath just as the last of Kurotsuchi's fireworks zoomed up towards the blackened sky. Shaking his head harshly, Ichigo reached into his pocket and pulled out a golden ball that fit snugly in the palm of his hand.

Urahara's words resurfaced in ichigo's mind as the firespark whistled up in the air and the sound of magnificent explosions rang in his ears.

"He's in shock!" Ichigo shouted as loud as he could above the noise of the fireworks, "He's at a breaking point! Renji's memories of you and Rukia are both equally real and his brain is shutting down to cope with all the chaos in his mind! Why didn't I remember this sooner!"

In a flash Ichigo was again at Renji's side. He gripped his friend's shoulders tightly to keep him from falling, and then pressed a small round object firmly into the palm of his hand. Almost instantly Renji eyes refocused. The tremendous pain in his head suddenly gone.

Moments ago the night sky had been filled with bright colours and the world echoed with booming noises and laughter. Then quickly the last fiery spark vanished and sky was dark once again.

"Sorry there Renji," his voice softened as the world fell silent, "my memory's acting strange today too."

"Ichigo..."

"Hold on to this..."

"What is it? What just happened? My head felt like it was going to tear in two..."

"Right at this second there are two opposing realities fighting against each other in your brain..." Ichigo explained, echoing Urahara's words from earlier, "Yanagi-san is standing her ground, but Rukia is creeping back into your head, pushing her away. You know what's going to happen...Just hold on to it-" he urged, folding Renji's fingers over the round thing, "-and you guys have until midnight. No disruptions," he promised.

* * *

In those last moments, they talked about so many things...

* * *

He knew it was all over when her voice grew so distant that Renji almost mistook it for the whistle of the wind.

Knowing the end was near, Renji took one last look at this woman in front of him.

The woman had golden hair. She wasn't smiling now but he remembered how wide and playful her smile could be. Her hair had been both long and short, yet always her eyes were penetrating and purple. The steel flower in her hair was the same one he'd given her when he asked her, that last and most memorable time, if she would become his wife.

Everything...their entire life...every moment they spent together...as children...as Shinigami...and he was supposed to forget it all...just like that...as if someone flicked off a switch and erased her existence just as easily as Ichigo turns off the lights in his room on earth...

He almost chortled out loud. The whole idea suddenly seemed preposterous. The golden ball remained right where Ichigo had left it, and already Renji had completely forgotten the immense pain that had pierced into his brain when the two realities pushed and shoved at each other, neither one wanting to back down and fade into oblivion. As long as he refused, he thought to himself, while Yanagi at last waved goodbye...as long as he fought back...she could not disappear...he would not allow her to disappear...

With these thoughts boiling madly in his mind, he reached out a hand, believing for one crazy instant that he could save her by plucking her straight out of the void...

With his outstretched hand Renji slapped his forehead with brute force and cursed the air as a sinking feeling filled the pit in his stomach. He had just missed an important rendezvous with Rukia at their secret hideout where they would have the best view of the fireworks. All their plans were laid out right there in front of him. They were going to get takoyaki and feast on them as they watched the greatest spectacle of the century. It was a date - in a way. She only asked Renji to go and Renji had been looking forward to this day for so many months. He just couldn't reason how he managed to forget something so important; how, instead of enjoying a night out with his best friend, he was standing by himself on Sokyoku Hill clumisly watching the stars blinking about in the sky.

Hours later orange light filtered through the clouds and shone down warmly on an abandoned house not far from the Sixth Division barracks. The dwelling was derelict and in an irrevocable state of disrepair. No soul had lived there since the ex-lieutenant Shirogane Ginjiro moved out to run a popular sun-glasses shop.

Late for an early morning meeting with his fellow Vice Captains, Renji sped past the house without sparing it a glance.

* * *

That's all~ thanks for reading :) All reviews are appreciated~


	4. Chapter 4

**Epilogue **

Part 1.

Memories That Were Lost

* * *

After she disappeared, she landed by the sea. She couldn't see it then, there was only darkness all around, but she caught that whiff of salty waters and that feel of the coarse, humid touch of the sea wind brushing against her face. She heard the waves lapping loudly against the shore and crashing against ragged rocks that she couldn't see. She felt it too, the air that was damp, and the feeling of malice hanging heavily in the pitch blackness that surrounded her.

The only light came into her line of sight just seconds after. The small purple firefly shined even more brightly in this world than in the one she had left behind. No larger than a pea, the tiny lump of silver fluttered to a stop on her now invisible palm, and whispered something to her.

"I'm still here Yana..."

It's voice adopted the form of shudders, tiny, timed pulses transmitted into her flesh, and the purple light shone brighter and dimmed rapidly like a candle caught in the wind as the words passed through her flesh and entered straight into her ears.

They were mostly comforting words. Compared to many of her comrades whose closest comrade-in-arms taunted them to make them stronger, Yanagi was lucky in her Zanpaktou, strapped to her side 24/7, was her best friend. On the other hand though, her bullying tutor was Ikkaku. Asleep for most of the days while Ikkaku berated her, but awake when she needed her most, Kuritonbo treated Yanagi like a little sister, comforting her, spoiling her, calling her names; and, most importantly, keeping her out of harm's way.

"Kuritonbo? I'm glad you're still here..."

"Ikkaku missed his chance, didn't he?" This time Yanagi snapped back, her eyes were present and awake again. she even managed a small smile.

"I always thought he'd be the end of me."

"I thought so too."

"All those years..."

Yanagi looked around her. The view of the fireworks still lingered stubbornly before her in the darkness, as though they were burned to her eyes. And no matter how hard she tried to forget, she could not shake away that pained look in her husband's eyes, and the way he looked at her the moment he reached out and tried to take a hold of her hand...

But it had been too late. His hand had barely brushed past her fingers before they were gone, vanished into a mist of purple. For a few short seconds the mist stayed. A sudden, fierce wind scattered the mist away and the glowing bits and pieces dispersed like the hairs on a dandelion, disappearing beyond the edge of the cliff.

"All those years just gone..."

Then she was here. Fully aware of what had passed. Not at all sure how she got here, or how to get out of this world of impenetrable night. This void was not cold, but she was alone. For the first time in her life she was entirely alone. His voice still rang in her ears. Though they did little to ease her of her loneliness, the last things he said still echoed in her mind. On and onthey kept repeating again and again in her head like a broken record. At times she enjoyed listening to his soft several times she found herself covering her ears and clawing her face, a scream at the tip of her tongue. The endless repetition was like a million bugs invading her ears, snapping her spine, and tearingher into pieces from the inside. She pleaded Kuritonbo, crying for her to make him stop talking, but the puff of purple light rose 10 mm from the centre of her palm, and dropped back limply into her hand 12 seconds later. The light flickered rapidly like the heartbeat of a tiny mouse for a few minutes. Her heart glowed for exactly the same number of seconds, taking it to mean her friend was coming to her aid.

But not long after, the tiny purple light burned out, and she was instantly thrown back into a world of darkness.

* * *

Gradually, like a brewing sandstorm, the void clawed its way out of silence and the darkness began to chatter and hum.

A thousand hell butterflies swarmed in front of her. The sound of their wings became voices when it met the cool air, voices transmitted from all over the different points of her history.

At first only whispers, then cries in the darkness as theybegan to fly faster, their strong wings beating madly. She felt the wind against her neck and winced when the sharp edges of their sleek black wings slashedthrough her socks and sliced the tips of her fingers. Suddenly, her whole life was laid bare before her.

"Hey Kurosawa!"

"Oi Yanagi!"

"Oh, Kurosawa-kun, didn't see you there! So, how's tricks?"

"Yana-chan what's wrong?"

Everything was there although there was no specific orderin which they appeared. They streamed back into her consciousness, reminding her that these things once happened. Whether it was the words someone had hissed in her ear seconds before she killed them, or a blade of grass that had grazed her bare feet in a peaceful meadow, those sounds and those memories all squeezed back into her mind, and she fell to her knees, just as Renji had done before, when she felt her head about to explode with the gravity of every single one of those memories.

Shortly though the pain subsided. Somehow, as though the voices knew now that they had caught her attention, they stopped crowding around her all at once, and quieted down considerably. They still came around in twos and threes, but she could hear each one of them clearly.

One voice stood out among the rest. And she closed her eyes to hear it better. In that moment, hearing the voice she hadn't heard in centuries, it seemed to her that nothing else was more important. In the noisy air, she forgot to listen to any other sound.

"Yana-chan, what's that boy doing there? He must be cold out there in the snow. Look at him, he's shivering, he's pale as a sheet!"

The voice stopped. It had happened a long time ago so she couldn't remember what made him stop talking. Meanwhile the other voices broke forth like light shedding through a crack in the curtain.

"You can come in if you like!" It was her grandfather's voice again. Raspy and tired, yet loud and tough when he needed it to be. "Spend anymore time out there you'll catch a cold!" he had yelled across the snow-covered yard.

Then, along came a voice she also hadn't heard in nearly one hundred years. Still high-pitched and childish, coarse but prone to unexpected squeals at inconvenient times, it was his voice from the day they met, not long after the dried yellow _sasanquas_ petals drifted down from the low branches and the snow buried deep the brown, fallen leaves.

"You're f'om the odd'r dith-tic…"

Somehow she had forgotten he had a lisp when he was a kid. Hearing it again was almost a comical experience. Back then he would frown and tremble with irritation when she couldn't understand what he said. She would tilt her head to a side, so many questions glimmering in her eyes, as she tried to comprehend what he was telling her.

"I know you…but there'th that old geezer wif you. What'chu doin' her by yourself?"

Sooner or later, usually when ten minutes sped past and she still hadn't figured out what his words were, he'd storm away, fuming. Sometimes he wouldn't return to her house for days and she'd spend those days worrying if she had lost her only friend. Fortunately he was never gone for long, and once his lisp disappeared for good, he came to see every other day. She would rush out to greet him and they would sit on the front steps until the sun rose to its summit, and shone hotly down on their little heads. Around noon, they'd grudgingly give in to her grandfather's persuasion and retreat inside a cool and dark room where her guardian already set two bamboo mats for them to lay on, and half a watermelon cut to the size of sugar cubes for them to cool off from the heat. This was so they could consume them without getting their chins wet and sticky, and also to keep their clothes and the _tatami_ mats free from pink, watery stains. She'd heard from Hinamori that that was also how she and 'Shiro-chan' spent their summers. Although because Hinamori's grandmother suffered from arthritis that had attacked her hands, they cut up the watermelon themselves, and they could never be patient enough to do it properly, only waiting long enough to cut it in fourths before they dug their teeth into the sweet and icy treat. Her grandmother scolded them and chased them outdoors where the sugary water could not drip onto the _tatami_ and send for an army of ants to invade the house.

Sometimes Renji's friends, Tombo, Morita, and the others, dropped by. It was odd at first and it took Yanagi a long time to understand why, but when they were around Renji's mouth would clamp shut, or his lisp would return briefly and he blushed whenever they tried to talk to him in front of Yanagi.

Around autumn time, Grampa would bring out trays full of chestnut-filled sweets for them to munch on. Winter was the time for steaming bowls of sweet red bean soup. The kid's eyes stared at the massive _shiratama dango_ hiding in plain sight, half-buried like an iceberg hiding in the sticky red bean porridge. They stared at it for minutes without blinking as if it were a giant lump of gold.

The first snowfall was the overture to the long, drawn-out winter months where renji and the other children stayed over at Yanagi's place. For them, the coldest months were literally the coolest. Those endless snow-drenched months where the days and the nights melted into one continuous, never-ending weekend of fun and games. Several times a year, in this house, with Yanagi and her grandfather, these children who originally came from Inuzuri, experienced warmth, kindness and love in a way they had never known before. They had a roof above their heads to shelter from the frost, two meals a day to keep them going, and a sincere old man to dote on them, who would grumble every time he saw their skinny frames, who was happiest when they asked for second-helpings during meals, and who, at least twice a day, would stare into their innocent eyes sternly, and gesture commandingly towards the bathroom at the end of the hall.

Once every week or so Grampa would ask the kids to help him with chores around the house. With the increased number of preteens running rampant, more paper doors ended up torn by the end of the day, strong muddy feet thundered up and down the hallways, begrimed the dry wooden boards all hours of the afternoon, and the heap of ripped and smelly clothes grew and grew till no matter how many times a day they washed and hung the clothes out to dry, the pile never dwindled.

Renji had awkward hands and fumbling fingers, and wasn't able to contribute much. The plates flew out of his soapy hands and broke into pieces on the floor. The lightbulbs were always screwed on too loose, shattering seconds after he descended and put away the ladder. Instead their friend Morita, a short sandy-haired boy helped the old man change the lightbulbs and fix the shingles on the roof. An older girl called Fumiko also turned out to be a big help, cooking and cleaning, and sewing when the quilts and the children's clothes needed mending.

Frustrated and bored, Renji loitered on the outskirts of their vision while his friends busied themselves with their sundry occupations, like scrubbing the wooden bathtubs or pasting fresh translucent paper over bamboo frames for the doors and windows. Not wanting to be a bother to anyone, he spent a couple of hours a few times each week sitting, isolated in the lonely, dark room for hours, cross-legged, his arm outstretched, his palm open and facing the ceiling, and as long as he could still fight against fatigue creeping up into his bones and the nerves in his arm, he kept this stance. He had seen Yanagi use the same technique to melt the frost from the veranda in the garden. Even when his friends finished helping Grampa around the house, usually around two in the afternoon, he remained in that room, ignoring them while they shouted for him to join their games, and concentrated all his energy on amassing an even bigger cannon of spiritual energy or boosting his control over his budding powers by levitating it, making it climb higher and higher, and maintaining its height and size for at first one minute, then two, when finally he was able to keep a hold of it for almost 6 minutes. Eventually fatigue caught up with him. He left the room after briskly tidying up, covering the burn stains in the walls by moving around the cabinets and chairs. He managed to hide it from his friends for quite some time, but soon everyone began to figure out that something was amiss. In return for something she had helped him with before Fumiko was the first person Renji demonstrated his powers to. It was a mystery how they got each other to do it, but together, they conspired in a twisty, elaborate scheme to surprise Yanagi with a spectacular and unforgettable show on her thirteenth birthday.

* * *

Among Renji's friends Yanagi became closest to Fumiko, a girl about her height, a few years older than her. More than Renji ever was, Fumiko turned out to be a permanent fixture at Yanagi's home even after the snow melted and spring returned. When Yanagi turned thirteen, Fumiko, who was fifteen at the time, was the first to learn that Renji had held Yanagi's hand, and that Renji didn't back away when Yanagi leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek.

"It's in the way you say his name too," Fumiko had told her. That day, she remembered, they were lying on their backs looking up at the wooden ceiling. In some secret way the contemplative silence of dusk and the dying daylight seemed to draw out words people weren't used to saying. So perhaps it was because of this that Fumiko, who made a habit of visiting Yanagi in the late afternoons, became such a close friend and they never kept anything from each other.

"I heard this from a lady in the fruit-and-vegetable market I walk past on my way here. She said that it's always in the way you say the name. Like if I say 'Yanagi' even a stranger can tell that we're best friends because of how I say it."

"Really?"

"Mm hmm," Fumiko nodded, "And it doesn't even need to be a name. I could say 'watermelon' and someone would think I was best friends with a watermelon as I'd just need to be thinking of you..."

"Hm..."

The silence forced her to say something. She didn't like silence at all. Suddenly the air would feel heavy with all the things unsaid, and Fumiko couldn't help blurt out whatever was in her mind… "Well, why don't you give it a shot!" Her voice rang out like a gunshot in the fading light. Name a fruit while thinking of _him_, and I'll tell you if it works or not!"

"Are you sure..."

"Go on, try it!"

Her face flushed in the sinking sun that cast a bright orange glow over the _tatami_ mat in the room. She felt her heart racing. Staring up at the ceiling she stretched out her arms in front of her, and then dropped her arms back to the floor. But Renji's image was already seared into her mind and she could not stand the thought of letting it go.

Fumiko wondered what she might say.

"Orange..."

They lay there just so. With their arms out at their sides and their legs wide apart, they looked like a pair of starfish lazing about on a sandy seabed.

"There you go..." Fumiko teased moments after the sun had set completely and the shadows of the night had crawled up to their knees.

* * *

_Renji_...she mouthed his name. If anyone could have heard it, there was less the secretive, rapturous sigh Fumiko had heard that evening long ago, and more the kind, all-forgiving type of affection, like two friends who had known each other their entire lives.

Her voice was gone, and his name was lost in that other realm. She cried out Renji's name again a dozen times as her memories of all the times they'd spent together replayed in her mind; and then Rangiku's name, and finally that of her _sensei_. Yet still she couldn't make herself heard. No voices or trickles of movement drifted into her ears; and no smells of anything living or dead floated close to her nose. In a fit of desperation she tried running away from the dark void. In that wide open space, there were no walls or fences. She ran and ran, trying to find a way out until her legs hurt and until her lungs felt like they were being pierced by a thousand needles.

There was no way out. The darkness just seemed to extend endlessly forever. Yanagi fell to the ground and started to weep. As she lay there, in a slump, her breathing heavy and uneven, her body tired and aching, her history continued to sweep past her.

Back in the small private hospital in Ichigo's world, in the hospital's even tinier kitchen, they were alone, and they were talking. She listened carefully to what the two strangers said, trying to see if it was exactly as she remembered. If she could, begin to relive that moment and recapture the things she had forgotten. She wanted to remember her life, recall the important moments, before it was ripped away from her. The time was gone, like the rest of them, they never lasted long. She loved the other times, but nothing could compare with this memory that lasted only a few minutes, and stayed with her for so much longer.

It was the memory was his first confession. It had happened almost five decades ago, yet she still blushed hearing those words again. There they were planning their future in the middle of someone else's kitchen, talking about someone else's little sister, while preparing someone else's tamagoyaki and shabu-shabu...

She smiled as she heard them talk. What sweet things they said. Had they really flirted in such uninhibited ways? The rest of the world seemed to disappear when they were together. With just a few words they quickly settled back into their own little world. A few minutes together and they were children again. They were luckier than most Shinigami in that they never needed to say goodbye to that part of themselves.

She brought her legs closer to her and pressed her cheek to her knees. Soon both her cheek and her knees were wet. The swarm of butterflies and the competing voices slowly dissipated, until only a tightly intertwined pair was left dancing by her ears.

The last two butterflies left echoes of the final words exchanged between her and her husband in Yanagi's ears. The night was dark and the silence was deep. Thoughts crossed their minds in no particular order, buzzing frantically in their minds, fragmented, scattered, like the thoughts of two lost panic-stricken, frightened children. They had forgotten all about Ichigo, who was outside of their bubble, standing not more than a few feet away. Held captive in their own solitary bubble, in their final seconds together, nothing else existed, but each other, their past, the tiny kitchen at the hospital, and the knowledge that this was their last day together, this was it- no later on, no tomorrow-no matter what promises they made before this day, what dreams they initially had, this was where their intertwined paths broke apart. Her path halted here, yet his continued on indefinitely. Beyond the patch of grass just around the bend, the moss-covered boulder beyond the crack in their path, and even their professions of love in the tiniest kitchen in the world, his life carried on and whatever it contained she would no longer share a part in it. Someone else would do that for her, and he would love that person dearly. It wasn't a wish or some self-comforting thought, it was something she already knew, like she knew that the fireworks had died; now, no more than a drifting continent of smoke in the sky. Yet behind her, glowing water rushed up on the shore, illuminated like 'blue-tears' on a beach in all sorts of pretty colours in addition to its classic blue—flamingo pink, gray blue like the back of a whale, red, and white as stars.

And she heard him say: "Remember when we first came to Soul Society…how strange this whole world was…how hard it was that no one cared to take us seriously...yet how much we wanted to stay."

His voice was soft. He brushed her hair aside and stroked cheek and the outline of her ear. He stared at her as though he was trying to memorize her face. His hand trembled, though they pretended not to notice. There was a quiver in her voice that wouldn't go away. It was as though one of them was dying.

"Just a thought…"she watched him in the same way, kneading his arms, tracing the black tattoos on her forehead with her fingers. "But with the way things are progressing, you'll lose all your hair before any one of them turns gray. You'll probably forget I even said that…If there's any way I can find out, I'm curious to know if I'm right."

Again he brushed her hair to a side. He did so repeatedly, the same way he had done on so many earlier occasions. Sometime ago, back when they were kids, before his mind even knew what his hands were doing; yesterday, just that morning, on the rooftop before she came to Sogyoku cliff to see Ichigo.

She saw those words on his lips, in the depths of his brown eyes, and in the way he held her close. She kneaded his arms to tell him that she knew what he was thinking and what he wanted to say, even without him saying a word. But he said it aloud anyway, a sign, perhaps that he was already starting to forget, that precious world where they spent their lives together changing all too soon.

"Don't go okay? Just try. Try to stay. Don't even think about leaving..."

The immense pain he felt and his reluctance to give up squeezed themselves into words, and force their way out of his mouth with such great difficulty that his voice trembled as he tried to speak them aloud. As she heard his voice quiver with the burden of his speech, she noticed that there were tears in his eyes again. She touched her palm to his cheek, proceeded to wipe away one trailing down the left side of his face, just as she remembered it was many, many years ago that she had raised her hand in this same manner with the wish to dry up every speck of sorrow in the world for him.

Responding to the sincere and familiar feel of her hand, he slanted his head so he could kiss her wrist. She smiled, and despite herself felt a warm glow spread in her heart as if someone had lit a small candle somewhere inside of her that neither the rising wind nor the thoughts of what might have been could extinguish.

The gravel seemed to dissolve from beneath her feet as her legs started fading away. The rustle of the nearby trees grew faint and she could no longer feel the comfort of his arms around her body. His face grew hazy, as did the words he said.

Still she couldn't help herself, and when the time arrived, and they were to be separated for good, she held out her arm to him, a gesture he reflected, and she uttered her final words to him (perhaps not the prize choice of words but it didn't matter since he wouldn't even remember).

"I'll see you again..."

* * *

After the last two lovebirds faded to black, she gradually stopped crying. She sat up and wiped away all her tears.

"Kuritonbo...?" she inquired into the bleak darkness. There was no response. Hastily she stretched out her arms and began to grope about in the darkness, this time though, not to find an exit, just to find her friend. Carefully she stood up, took three uncertain steps forward. The ocean thrashed its waves on the shore, and she hoped her senses were still alive and keen enough to prevent her from bumping into a rock. Finally when she regained her balance and composure, she inched ahead, slowly at first, then suddenly, she started jogging lightly, her arms still scrabbling about ahead of her, waiting to bump into the source of the sound.

When she finally found Kuritonbo, she wrapped her arms around her shoulders, hugging her tightly against her chest. The front of her clothes were soaked. The shock of Yanagi sneaking up on her caused that final cry to dissolve in Kuritonbo's throat, escaping into the open as a loud and confused hiccup.

"Did I ever tell you about the first time that I met you?"

She felt in her arms Kuritonbo shake her head.

"I felt this incredible wave of inspiration. Like I had just opened a door to a whole new world that was full of all these dreams and possibilities that I still needed to explore.

"Suddenly, I felt we could conquer the whole world! Just the two of us! And I know now that conquering the world is harder than it seems but do you remember all the wonderful things we have accomplished together? Remember the first time I cried out your name in battle? The admiring look in everyone's eyes! Remember how proud Renji was when he saw us? We really had a great run, didn't we!"

Yanagi's voice trailed off. Kuritonbo was so silent Yanagi worried she had already disappeared.

"Any idea where you'll end up?"

Kuri thought for a moment.

"I don't know...The world's a vast place, I'm sure there's some place out there for me."

"Do you feel like you're going to disappear too?" The tingling feeling was spreading to the tips of her fingers.

"Yes…I feel we don't have much time now…"

"You were a tricky one. You made me work so hard to get to know the real you. It was never that hard between Renji and Zabimaru."

Kuritonbo sighed and Yanagi imagined she was smiling in the dark, sifting through the memories.

"Are you okay Yana?"

Yanagi nodded, although on second thought she found she wasn't so sure anymore why her friend had asked this question.

"I'm fine. What about you?"

Kuritonbo didn't respond though it hurt her to hear Yanagi speak as though they were strangers.

"What were you thinking about?"  
"I was just thinking how it's so unfair…Why me? Of everyone in the world, so many other people to choose from, why only me? All my memories…my entire world...They're supposed to just disappear? It's so unfair…"

Suddenly sorrow spilled right out of her heart the way blood unexpectedly gushed out of a healing wound. She felt like screaming, but instead tears gushed out of her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Kuri, I don't know what's come over me...I..."

Kuritonbo held her hand. They spent the next few hours sitting back to back in silence. Each sorting through their own memories, straining under their own fears and burdens.

"Maybe if we tell each other everything that happened,I'll remember you and you'll remember me, and all that we've been through together will not be forgotten no matter where we end up."

It was the same thing Ikkaku said to her, but it took a while for Yanagi to remember. The words carried a familiar ring. Yanagi thought she might have heard them in a dream or when she was very little.

In a few minutes, the pieces came together and she understood how Kuritonbo was there when she went to say goodbye to Ikkaku and thus must have heard him say those words. Perhaps the two of them were privy to secrets Yanagi never knew; among them the one secret to how she might have been allowed to stay. She wished now that she hadn't so impulsively stormed out of the room. Though what good would it do even if she had remained in that room, while Ikkaku sat on the veranda watching the orange light drowning in the unreachable distance and listening to her pull out a fading history from the ashen shadows? Ikkaku would not remember her. She, Yanagi, had entered his life too late to mean anything to him. The way things were, by the time she came around, Ikkaku was already taken, so to speak, that very special place at the core of his heart, at the centre of his being had been taken. It had been occupied for some time already, and nothing could change that.

But Kuritonbo would remember. Yanagi was still the most important person to her. She would remember everything, Yanagi was sure of that though in her urgency and despair, her mind was a blur and she just could not figure out how it worked and what made her so sure.

But she started telling her story anyway. Once she started, it became more and more difficult to hold anything back. It took her all of 99 days to recount the story of her entire life to her best friend. It was a story that should never have been written. Yet she told it as though everything really happened.

Kuritonbo nodded to show she was listening and raised her hand to touch Yanagi's cheek when the latter stopped for catch her breath, to catch up to the days, the stories she still had to tell. Each time she began a new story, or turned the page to reveal an entirely new chapter of her life, Kuritonbo sensed fear in her voice as though she was afraid that the world might write her off before she had time to finish her tale.

Some stories were easier to tell than others. Yanagi remembered some days more clearly while the foggy, obscure ones took her full days to recount. She didn't always go in sequence and she began with her most memorable memory. There were holes here and there that she only remembered to fill in a couple of days or sometimes even weeks later.

"Do you know? He kept it!"

"What do you mean? What did he keep?"

Yanagi blinked twice. Suddenly realizing that it was indeed a valid question. "Hmm…What did he actually keep? What was it again? And what were we talking about just now?" She stared up at Kuritonbo, trying to find an answer in her large purple eyes. But those eyes only gazed back at her with heartbroken tenderness.

But then, like steam, the confusion dissipated and everything that stood behind it slowly came back into focus.

"The stick figurine...The one I made as I waited for him to come meet me..." Yanagi bowed her head and looked down at her empty palms staring back up at her.

Her eyes filled with sadness, but her listener laughed, as if it were a mistake anyone might make. Yet after another blunder, she adopted a much slower pace and grew more cautious of the words that came out of her mouth. She paused more often, stopping to ask Kuritonbo a question to confirm the integrity of her memory.

"Oh, I see..." she would say when her friend reminded her how it really went.

She was silent for days when she finally came to the end. After she uttered her last words, she felt as though someone had tied a wet, warm towel around her mouth, and pressed a glass fishbowl over her head. She couldn't see or speak. Kuritonbo held her hand and occasionally reached out for her fingers to lightly skim over her cheeks. Her eyelids grew heavier, and it got more difficult to breathe.

She knew the time had come when she caught the scent of jasmine petals floating around the air.

She closed her eyes.

* * *

Thank you so much for reading~ Next chapter is going to be the last one ^_^


	5. Chapter 5

Last chapter! I finished it in a bit of a rush, so please excuse any mistakes! Thank all you lovely people for sticking with this story to the end!

Thank you dimonyo-anghel for your review! And to a big thank you to everyone who favourited and followed too! Every form of response I got encouraged me to complete this story. And to everyone who read and didn't review, thank you for making sure these words get read! It means an awful lot!

* * *

**Epilogue**

Part 2.

A Path To New Beginnings

* * *

When she opened her eyes, she saw a woman standing in front of her. The woman stood in a circle of light, surrounded by darkness. She had black hair, and her eyes widened in surprise at the sight of the little girl appearing suddenly in her dream. She took a step back. In her hand was a snowy white blade, and a long, glowing strip of silk twirled around her body.

"Who are you?"

The poor child was scared to find herself in such a dark place. She shivered, and couldn't take her eyes off of the woman dressed in black robes.

"I'm, I'm Yanagi…" the small child shivered.

The woman watched her with cool and diligent eyes.

"And what's your name, o-neesan?" Yanagi asked, taking a step forward, and trying to sound brave.

Knowing that this child could harm her, Rukia relaxed. She slid Sode no Shirayuki back into its sheath and kneeled down to meet Yanagi's eyes.

"It's Rukia," she replied. The kindness in her voice sounded natural—which was even more strange considering she hardly ever used that tone around her friends.

"Rukia…" Yanagi repeated, emphasizing each syllable. Her big blue eyes fit awkwardly upon her small and pointy face.

Rukia placed her hand on Yanagi's hair and brushed the loose golden strands behind her small ears. "What are you doing here Yanagi-chan? Are you lost?"

Tears bubbled around the child's eyes. "A monster was after me…" she sniffed.

"Monster?"

The girl nodded earnestly. She gasped and began to sob. "I'm dead! The monster must have gotten me! That's why I'm here and it's not!"

Rukia was at a loss. She looked this way and that, as if trying to find someone else to help her. But no one else appeared , she was entirely alone. She tried a reassuring smile, but the girl cried louder.

Just then a small butterfly fluttered out of the darkness. Its light wings were bright purple and left a trail of glistening dust behind it as it flew away.

"Wait here a bit okay?" she said to her.

A moment later-

"Okay, now give me your hand."

Rukia tipped the small helpless creature into the girl's palm. "There there, see—" She ran the tips of her fingers gently around butterfly's wings. The butterfly stood still on Yanagi's palm. It didn't try to fly away.

Somehow, seeing the butterfly so comfortably and safe in her hand, the girl stopped crying, and the beginning of a smile slowly crept on her lips.

"Can I ask you something, Yanagi-chan?"

The girl nodded at the same time she did not look at her.

"Why were you calling out for Renji? Do you know him?"

"He was supposed to come to the hill. I was waiting for him," she replied all in one breath. But something did not seem right. She glanced up at her suspiciously. "How do you know him, o-neesan? Do you know where he is?"

"No…" Last she saw him he was at Ichigo's school. How was it possible that he had agreed to a rendezvous with this child when they were supposed to be busy preparing to battle the Arrancar? She stared at this kid, at a loss for words.

She kneeled down before Yanagi and looked deep into her eyes.

"I'm not sure what's happening to you, Yanagi-chan...For me I'm certain this is a dream, but I'm afraid it might be a dream for you too and you'll soon wake up to find that nothing has changed in the world you left...That monster..."

Her face paled at the thought of it, and threw herself in Rukia's arms. "Oh, please help me! I don't want to die!"

"Of course, of course, I will help you! Yanagi-chan, I will help you, so please stop crying and listen carefully. We've got to work fast, or else one of us might start waking up. Tell me…what did it look like, this monster from the other side of your dream?"

She hesitated at first. Merely the memory of it made her afraid. Rukia became impatient, tapping her feet, but she didn't want to rush her since it might make her cry again.

She had run out of ideas.

"Open your hand again, okay?"

"Why? Has the butterfly come back?"

"No but I want you to take this. My best friend gave it to me. He's an incredibly strong and brave person. You'll feel safe if you hold onto this."

She placed a hairclip into Yanagi's hands. It was dark to see what it looked like.

"Hold it tight, and don't let go."

She wanted to promise her that the monster couldn't get her as long as she held on to it. But she daren't lie. She only wished to help her. If only Yanagi would tell her what the creature looked like…there was the smallest possibility she might have seen it before. And if she had, she could tell Yanagi how to defeat it. There was only a tiny sliver of chance, but maybe, just maybe, she could save her.

"Where are you right now?"

"Mt Mishima…"

It was where she and Renji had played when they were kids, where they had buried their friends…What was this child doing there?

"Does it have horns on its head?"

"No."

"Does it have a long steel tail?"

"No."

The girl was close to crying again.

"Then did you see how it walked?"

"It didn't," she sniffed.

"It didn't?"

"It slithered!" she shouted, finding her voice.

The image stirred in Rukia's memory.

"Did it light a trail of fire behind it, setting the grass and fallen leaves aflame as it slithered up the mountain?"

Yanagi nodded hastily. "The mountain is burning…It was so hot…I ran, and ran…"

Rukia understood, and swallowing, she steadied her voice.

"Ok, Yanagi-chan, listen carefully…" She leaned forward and whispered a string of instructions in her ear. She only had time to say everything once. The girl didn't stop to ask any questions. After Rukia had finished, she fixed her eyes on her. "You know what to do now?"

Yanagi nodded.

"Good girl. Remember, you must—"

But before she could finish Yanagi was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

When Rukia opened her eyes again, the bright sun streaming through the trees blinded her. She covered her eyes, and tried to move away. Forgetting where she was, she fell to the ground. A fan of leaves and a broken branch landed with a loud thud after her.

"I told you not to doze off in the tree!"

She dusted the yellow leaves off her robes. Renji watched her with interest and the old mischevious smile. "Remember what you told me last time?" You should listen to your own advice." He extended his hand and helped Rukia up.

"So…" he ventured to ask as he and Rukia walked away from the park, towards Ichigo's home.

"What did you dream about?"

Reading the question before she had the chance to open her mouth, Renji explained succinctly: "I always have the strangest dreams when I spend a night up in a tree."

"Hm, it was a strange dream alright…Say, do you know a 'Yanagi' from Rukongai?"

Renji lowered his head, shadows sprouted all over his expression.

"OH! So you DO know her!"

Renji bowed his head low.

"I did know her. A long time ago."

"How long ago?"

Renji sighed, "Maybe fifty years? I don't remember exactly." Nor did he want to remember. The way trips to the hospital or walking past a 'lost and found' bin always made him remember that no one ever found her, thinking about her was too painful to bear, and he couldn't understand why Rukia was forcing him to remember this agony.

Rukia had her reasons. It was her dream she couldn't stop thinking about. Fifty years? She echoed under her breath. Then it couldn't have been her.

They continued walking.

Ichigo's house was within sight. She kept thinking about Yanagi, though she didn't ask him any more questions.

She felt it was silly, dwelling on it so much, it was only a dream!

But she could still see the fear in the child's eyes, felt her whole body shake. Will she be alright? Would the kid remember what she told her?

That the kid mentioned Renji's name was no longer important. She didn't even care about Renji's sudden withdrawal. Her only concern was whether Yanagi-chan would be safe.

If only there was a way for her to find out if she survived

They stopped in front of Ichigo's house, just as Ichigo opened the door and rushed out into the street.

"Oi, Ichigo!" Renji shouted after him. But, just seconds later, Ichigo had already disappeared. Although he left the door open, so Renji and Rukia obediently filed in.

"Where's he off to?"

"Urahara's?" Renji suggested. It was the first place that popped into his mind. He had visited the store earlier that week.

* * *

Ichigo got up earlier than usual that morning.

He was the only one who knew. When Shizuku and Homura corrupted everyone's memories, he alone remembered who Rukia was, and now as Rukia returned, he alone remembered that Yanagi used to live here.

He barged through the door of Urahara's shop, stormed down the halls, forcing open every door in his sight. When he finally located Urahara, he walked into the room without an invitation, and threw himself on the tatami-covered floor. If Urahara Kisuke was surprised to see him, he hid it very well. He didn't offer the intruder any tea or water. But since Ichigo was also a frequent customer of his shop, a guest, and a friend, he decided he should at least lend an ear and see how he could share his troubles. Be a friend.

Anyway, he had an idea of why Ichigo came to him. If it turned out to be what he thought, he would tell him all he knew.

"So you've noticed?"

"How does something like this happen?" Ichigo delved straight into the issue. "First she's here, then, because of us, her whole existence vanishes. Now she's here again, but not completely…She seems different…It's not her…"

Urahara poured himself a cup of tea, ignoring Ichigo's presence. The steam drifted up to the light hanging on the ceiling. No one had come or left the room. He sipped the tea gently. After a moment's silence, Urahara raised his eyebrows.

"Who are you talking about?" he asked.

"Kurosawa Yanagi! Who else? I thought you knew, didn't you just ask me if I noticed anything strange recently?"

"Strange, yes…Ah, I thought it was something else…Well, let's hear it then. What's this about Yanagi-chan?"

"AH-HA!" Ichigo leapt to his feet, and narrowed his eyes on the old ex-Captain opposite him. His determined stare and posture reminded Urahara of Jinta, on one of their last fishing trips, about to catch a large fish...Except he didn't appreciate that Ichigo pointed a finger at him and made him feel like the accused fish. "You do remember her!" He shouted.

"Remember? Why shouldn't I remember her?"

Ichigo's shoulders twitched and he dropped his outstretched right arm. It wasn't like him to be so yielding. He thought about going home—Rukia and Renji would be waiting for him. He didn't know how long they could stand staying in the same house as his father and sisters without him acting as the mediator. Ichigo was about to leave, when he suddenly asked:

"How easy is it to erase someone? Make it as though they never existed…"

Urahara looked up at him. His eyes twinkled.

"You mean, like erasing someone's memories?"

Ichigo sat down again at the short wooden table.

"No…like erasing an existence completely."

Urahara started to laugh. He shook out his fan and waved a cool breeze in his face.

"That's impossible!" He broke out in laughter. "Nobody can do that! Erasing existences is a delicate business. It's harder than creating something from nothing!"

"What if they weren't supposed to exist in the first place?"

Urahara thought it over silently. He took out a piece of paper, a pencil, and scratched a dark line in the centre of the page. Then, from nowhere, he grabbed an eraser and began vigorously rubbing away the mark.

Ichigo watched him, confused.

"Okay, pretend this is an existence. Once a person exists, no matter how hard you try they'll always leave their mark."

Ichigo nodded.

"If it seems like someone has disappeared," Urahara continued to explain. "It just means that whatever circumstances led you to meet her in the first place might never have taken place. An alternate reality. It feels like you're remembering someone from a dream…"

On his way home, Ichigo played Urahara's words over in his mind.

Then they couldn't just make her disappear. They wanted to, the world was fixed now, Rukia came back, and it should go back to the way it was. But it would have been too messy. How many lives had been changed when she arrived in Soul Society? Renji's life for one. Yet she probably played a key role in the lives of so many other people, changing their pasts and impacting their futures in a million imperceptible ways...that can't all be erased...

When Ichigo crossed paths with her again, he tried to smile at the woman who had the same golden hair and bright blue eyes as Yanagi. But his face clearly showed that his heart was breaking.

* * *

And so the journey ends~

Thanks again for taking it with me!

I hope you enjoyed it too!

Best wishes!

~W


End file.
